Wednesday, May 22, 2013

2013 Writing Contest

Here's some work I did recently for the Philadelphia City Paper, who I always enjoy working with. This time, AD Reseca Peskin contacted me to do the cover as well as an illustration inside the issue for their annual Writing Contest issue. The winning fiction story, which you can read here, is about a woman who works as a casino card dealer. When her child dies, she and her husband take a trip to New Orleans to help get their mind off of their loss.
Reseca had the idea for the cover of a black voodoo pin, which is used to relieve pain, pushed through the suicide king playing card. As for the illustration inside the issue, she had the idea of an airplane made out of playing cards.
When I began sketching, I went through several variations just to push the ideas.

Cover sketches

Plane sketches

We wound up combining the normal king face and my more gruesome skull king into one and going with the plane covered in the elements from the card rather than made out of cards.
I had a great time working on both pieces in all of their great detail.